Can CAPS United break DeMbare jinx?

By Robson Sharuko

CAN CAPS United end four years of hell, repeated pounding at the hands of a dominant, if not ruthless, rival and a miserable run that has seen them fail to even score against Dynamos since Callisto Pasuwa took over as coach of the Glamour Boys? 

Is there a hero in this Green Machine, about to evoke the spirit of Nyasha Mushekwi, scorer of the two goals in that victory against DeMbare at Rufaro in April 2009, on an afternoon when Oscar Machapa turned on a vintage wing display and destroyed the career of Sam Mutenheri?

Can Makepekepe break away from the Group of 17 — the number of Premiership clubs who have failed to beat Dynamos since Pasuwa became head coach after replacing his close friend Lloyd Mutasa in August 2011?

Is this the golden moment that Taurai Mangwiro has been waiting for his reunion with gangly forward Tawanda Nyamandwe to work, with devastating effect, towards the downfall of DeMbare, as was the case on April 14 last year, when the duo helped Monomotapa post a 1-0 victory over the champions at Rufaro?

Can CAPS United become only the third home team, after Masvingo United in 2011 and Chicken Inn last year, to find a formula of how to beat the Glamour Boys in the 21 months that Pasuwa has been coach and won two league titles?

Does the fact that three of the four defeats that Pasuwa has suffered, in 50 league matches as DeMbare coach, have come against coaches who have a background of having either played or coached the Glamour Boys — Mangwiro, Ralph Kawondera and Bigboy Mawiwi — give CAPS United a chance in this Harare Derby?

On April 12 last month, the clock marked four years since CAPS United fans celebrated victory over their bitter city rivals when the combination of a slippery Machapa and a lethal Mushekwi powered the Green Machine to a deserved 2-0 win.

That year CAPS United finished third in the championship race, five points behind second-placed Dynamos, in a marathon won by Moses Chunga and his Gunners and, crucially, there was the consolation that the five points dropped by the Glamour Boys in two league matches against Makepekepe destroyed their dreams to be champions.

But six league matches in 2010, 2011 and 2012 have produced nothing but a cocktail of failure for the Green Machine, in their showdown against the team that their fans measure themselves against, with six straight losses, including a 3-0 blowout in their last encounter at the National Sports Stadium last year.

While Mushekwi scored three times, in just two matches against DeMbare in 2009, CAPS United are yet to score against the same team since Pasuwa took over as coach and that barren run hasn’t only been limited to the league matches but also to the Mbada Diamonds Cup where they crashed to a 0-3 defeat on neutral soil at Barbourfields last November.

On Sunday Mangwiro and his Green Machine come up against the immovable object once again and, amid the gloom of the battering they have suffered in the recent past at the hands of the Glamour Boys, they have to find a ray of light to lead them back to the days when they could stand, toe-to-toe, against their rivals and occasionally throw a knockout punch.

CAPS United fans have been going down memory lane, evoking emotions of their club’s 7-0 destruction of Dynamos in a league match and splashing an image of The Herald’s report of that match on the social media sites.

That now belongs to a past that produced four league titles for the Green Machine and a host of superstar footballers that included the immortal Joel “Jubilee” Shambo, Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa, Stanley Ndunduma, Friday Phiri, Duncan Ellison, Joe Mugabe, Mphumelelo Dzowa, Stewart Murisa, Alois Bunjira and the two assistant coaches Brenna Msiska and Albert “Dalala” Mabika.

What matters this weekend is the present and a victory against a team that has seemingly perfected the art of not losing against the Green Machine, in the past four years, will be a huge leap of faith for a group of footballers who have, so far, performed beyond expectations in the championship race.

Goalkeeper Tafadzwa Dube still carries bitter memories of that unforgettable afternoon when the Glamour Boys marched into Mandava, in the penultimate game of the 2011 season, and pinched all three points in a spectacular smash-and-grab mission that gave them the league championship at the expense of FC Platinum.

Life for Dube and his teammates was never the same at the Zvishavane club, after that huge setback, and a community that had grown to love them, as they chased a dream of becoming only the second team after St Paul’s Musami in 1966, to take the league title outside Harare and Bulawayo, suddenly turned against them.

Where they used to be embraced in loving hugs, they were now viewed as mercenaries who had failed the ultimate test, despite being paid a fortune for that, and the divisions that rocked the team after that were expected and Dube was forced out during the off-season.

He was never going to be short of teams lining up to sign him, given his quality, and he chose CAPS United, who badly needed a ‘keeper, and was at his brilliant best at Gibbo on Sunday as he emerged the hero when the Green Machine edged luckless Triangle 1-0.

Just like Nyamandwe and centreback George Magariro, there was a time when Dube was a Glamour Boy but that is all part of a past, to be stored for the history books, with his immediate focus being on ending four years of hell, for the Green Machine fans, at the hands of the old enemy at the giant stadium on Sunday.

In an era where football appears to take a certain pattern that you can predict that the country that hosts the Uefa Champions League will produce the winner in the following season (2010 — Barcelona win after Madrid had hosted the final in 2009; 2011 — Inter Milan win after Rome had hosted the final in 2010; 2012 — Chelsea win after London hosted in 2011; 2013 — a Germany club wins after Munich hosted in 2012), it’s easy to understand the CAPS United fan who has given up hope and feels fate is against his side.

But then the same Uefa Champions League didn’t produce an El Clasico final between Real Madrid and Barcelona, which a lot of people probably wanted, and the Catalans were blown away in a 0-7 hammering, the same scoreline that has been giving some CAPS United fans comfort in the week leading to the Harare Derby.

Is this their moment?

Probably yes!

But they will have to move mountains not to win but even just to score.